The Years of Apocalypse - A Time Loop Progression Fantasy

Mirian made it down to the canals with only a few people pointing and shouting about her, then dropped her night camouflage as she flew inside, taking several twists and turns through the reinforced caves, passing a boat full of very surprised laborers moving supplies through the waterways. Once she was out of sight, she landed and cast detect life again, but all she saw were the forms of people moving about on the boats through the tunnels. There was no cluster of twenty of them moving together.

She wandered through the passages, seeing if there were any boats smuggling people out inside crates, or Palendurio Guards riding the rafts, but found neither. She cast detect metal, enhanced to have a mental component so no one else could see the glow, hoping that if the guards had taken off their armor she could detect it, but the usual merchants were carrying around too many goods with metal in them for anything to look out of place. She would need a more specific divination spell, and she didn’t have one. Always next time, she thought.

The group seemed to have disguised themselves and dispersed. This cycle, she wouldn’t find them, but she’d know where to wait next time. At this point, she was sure the guards were impostors of some kind. The murder of the guard at the gate was evidence enough of that. But who? she wondered.

By then, she was tired, and low on mana. She headed back to the inn for dinner.

The commons of the Bard and Lion Inn was ablaze with rumors. Mirian ordered a meal from the counter, then sat in her usual corner. All around, everyone was talking.

“—heard that the guard just came in wands blazing! Literally, that thing burned like—”

“—what in the hells were they thinking? Couldn’t have been the guard, why would they do that? Why would anyone do that?”

“—talked to a woman who said they saw a pile of bodies—”

“—explosion, outside the city. He said it was an attack, saw spells getting flung about—”

Mirian started eating, when a man sat across from her.

“This seat taken?” he asked.

“It is now,” Mirian said.

“You hear what happened?” he said, peering around the room, then out the window. “Can’t believe it. The Akanan Embassy, attacked! I heard it was the Praetorians,” he said.

Mirian shrugged. “It looked like the Palendurio Guard to me. Then again, anyone can wear that armor.”

“You saw it? Damn. Did they really attack the crowd?” He didn’t actually wait for her to answer, though. Clearly, he had a lot of nervous energy and just wanted to talk. “There’s a rumor going around that there was an attack north of the city. You think the attack on the embassy was retaliation? And the Akanan merchants are in on it. Damn, always knew they were scheming. They talk to each other, you know? Back each other. You think they might try to retaliate?”

Mirian leaned back, really looking at the man for the first time. He certainly looked worried. But she’d heard that rumor before, in tomorrow’s broadsheets. It seemed a bit early to be suspecting the Akanan merchants of anything. Do the Akanan merchants already have a reputation like that? Or is there a campaign to spread the rumors? “Where’d you hear that from?” Mirian asked.

“People are talking,” the man said.

“So… someone on the street? How would they know if the merchants were conspiring?”

“The Akanan merchants are always talking to each other! Everyone knows that. Any time a new shipment comes in—”

“How do you know they talk?” Mirian asked.

The man abruptly stood, pushing his chair out. “Why am I talking to you?” he said, annoyed.

“I don’t know. You’re the one that sat down in front of me,” Mirian said.

The man glared at her, then left, muttering something about “young brats” as he did.

Interesting, Mirian thought.

***

The next morning, Mirian counted five broadsheets discussing the attack as ordered by Governor Palamas, and eight mentioning the rumor about the Akanans preparing to retaliate by burning warehouses, stores, boats, or sometimes even Palendurio apartments. Six of those eight called for patriotic Baracueli to defend their nation from Akanan sabotage. The language the newspapers used was surprisingly similar. Of course, the average person probably didn’t cross-reference twelve different papers every day, so who would notice?

The rumblings in the streets continued all morning. Then, as Mirian watched from her balcony, the riots started. Over by the docks, a warehouse burned. At lunch, she heard that a mob had seized five merchants by River Station and beaten them, possibly to death. Meanwhile, a march of citizens to Ducastil had been attacked with sparkfire cacaphony and several other spells, and two Baracueli had died in the resulting panicked stampede.

Throughout the day, there were more mob attacks, and people came and went from the streets. It seemed most people were trying to figure out what was going on, but as the day went on, it seemed that rumor became fact, and soon the crowds were roaming about with purpose. There were several more attacks on Akanan merchants. On the river, two boats burned.

Mirian watched it all, aloof and impartial. It felt like a puppet show playing out before her, but only she could see the strings.

The next day, the Baracuel Army marched into Palendurio to restore order.

That just led to street fighting. Unlike the guards, the soldiers didn’t have crowd-control spells, so instead they were using force push and the occasional combat spell. Meanwhile, the crowds threw bricks and formed blocks to push back against the soldiers. A few magi were part of the civilian crowds, so it wasn’t purely one-sided, but in several cases, the soldiers fired into the crowd, which usually got them to run, but only temporarily. Then they’d be back, larger than ever. More rumors spread of strange explosions.

By the 23rd, the street violence seemed as perpetual as the wind.

“Where are the Arcane Praetorians?” Mirian asked a woman at the Bard and Lion that evening.

“I heard they’re not here. Went on some secret mission down south, and never came back. Well, it’s a good thing they did go south, you know? There’s that horrid Persaman general threatening Alkazaria, but it’s our Praetorians holding him back. I don’t know why everyone’s so mad at Akanans now. It’s the Persamans we need to chase out of the city. I’m sure they’re just waiting for their opportunity,” she said.

Mirian contemplated that. She thought about what Nicolas would say about it all. If the mob violence was organic and spontaneous, they should be targeting the Persamans as the timeline has changed. Every cycle, the southern time traveler makes more progress, but the events here stay the same. It must be planned. I wonder how many people it takes spreading a rumor for it to take hold?

That night, Mirian watched from high above the city as mobs tore about the streets, battling guards, soldiers, or the mercenaries the Akanan merchants were hiring to protect themselves. Outside the city, she would occasionally see an orange and violet flash of light as a minor magical eruption took place.

“Did you hear? Akana Praediar is declaring war on us!” the chef told her in the morning as he set breakfast down in front of her. “It must have been a surprise attack. There’s explosions all around Palendurio. But the Baracuel Army is here, in the city! They should be out there, fighting.”

By the 25th, Hanaran was likely starting to gather her forces to move north, though no one in Palendurio was talking about it. The trains north had stopped running, which told Mirian the damage to the tracks had severed all the lines to Cairnmouth. Midday, the General of the Western Armies, Kallin Corrmier, occupied Parliament.

Mirian overheard a well-to-do woman ranting about it. “For their protection, he said. For their protection, he said! Protect them from who? Isn’t it the city he should be protecting? If Akana Praediar is at war with us, and Persama is at war with us, what in the five hells is General Corrmier doing sitting in the center of Palendurio with the army!”

That was the general sentiment. No one could figure out why General Corrmier was doing it.

Mirian moved about the streets, making light conversation to ask questions, or listening in on conversations that were already in progress.

Some said the army was trying to stop the rioters. Some said the army was encouraging the rioters and working with them to root out the Akanan saboteurs that were everywhere. Some said the army was fighting the guard, which had been bribed to fight for Akana, while others said, no, it was the army that had been bribed, and only the Palendurio Guard could be trusted.

In a word, people were confused.

For all the citizens roaming about the streets, Mirian couldn’t make heads or tails of what they were trying to accomplish. They were mad. They were scared. But they had no conception of what was going on, so their outbursts targeted whatever was close by. Foreign merchants were easy targets.

The crisis continued, until the next morning when the rumor was that Pontiff Oculo Stellnat would address the city. By noon, a huge crowd had gathered, spreading from the steps of the Grand Sanctum to all the nearby streets. People were packed all the way across the bridge and to the other side of the river. On the river itself, several barges pulled up to the banks so that more people could fit on them. For an hour, the crowd murmured about what they expected His Supreme Holiness to say. Mirian took this time to scribe a water walk spell, then walked across the river and found a spot on the pier so she’d be close enough to listen.

At last, Pontiff Oculo appeared. He was a tall man with a neatly trimmed silver beard, though it was his ornate vestments that stood out, glistening gold and silver in the sunlight. As he emerged, applause erupted from many in the crowd.

An arcanist by the Pontiff’s side cast an amplify voice spell.

“People of Palendurio!” Oculo boomed out, and the crowd quieted to listen. “Troubled times have come to holy Baracuel. It is our faith and the blessings of the Gods that will see us through, as they always have.”

A cheer went up. Oculo waited for it to die down before continuing. “The Elder Gods, in their wisdom, have sought to guide us. We of the Order only illuminate that path. Palendurio has stood for a thousand years as a source of light. It must continue to be a shining example of civilization!”

Here, he waited, but the response of the crowd was more muted. They were still waiting to see what he had to say. “When I see Palendurio burning, it is to Carkavakom I turn. The rule of law must prevail in Palendurio.”

Mixed murmurs and cheers followed this proclamation. For some, that was all they wanted—things to just go back to the way they were. For others, it seemed they had been following the path of Carkavakom. Fear and destruction, after all, were His tools for enforcing law. Isn’t that what they had been doing when they burned down the homes of the traitorous Akanans?

“What should the response be of a faithful citizen as the army attempts to restore order? This is the first of the holy cities, and our actions must reflect it…”

So that’s where he’s going with this, Mirian thought. As the speech continued, Pontiff Oculo never said, ‘listen to General Corrmier,’ but he might as well have. She tried to think through what that implied. Corrmier obviously represents his own noble family, but how did he get the Luminate Order to back him? Why does the military even need to occupy the city?

Then she realized. The Palamas family is the one getting displaced. That’s why Governor Palamas is the target. They kill him to remove him as a threat, but also pin the embassy attack on him. Somehow, they also have the backing of the Luminates, but then how does Akana Praediar fit into all of this? Do they know about the planned break in the alliance and the invasion?

General Corrmier outranked General Hanaran. And when he ordered General Hanaran north, it was to her death, and the death of the entire division. Was that also part of the plan, or a miscalculation?

The crowd wasn’t happy with Pontiff Oculo’s speech, which ended up being quite short. Calls for peace and to follow martial law were uncharacteristic of His Supreme Holiness. Ever since the Unification War, the Luminates had mostly remained neutral in politics, and enough people could tell his speech felt a whole lot like picking sides.

There was also the issue of the magical explosions that were now coming with increasing frequency. Oculo didn’t address them at all in his speech, and the crowd grumbled about that too. If it’s a preplanned speech, it wouldn’t, Mirian rationalized. Just like the professors with prewritten lectures never changed them.

Sure enough, the riots continued. Any Akanans still left in the city were leaving as fast as they could, but not fast enough for the mobs. The next morning, three Akanans were found with their arms nailed to the walls of their shops in clear reference to the spikes that pierced the Ominian.

That day, there was a new development.

“For the King! For Baracuel!” shouted a mob armed with tools and improvised spears as they attacked another group that was roaming the streets by the sanctum. There was a bloody skirmish that left two bodies bleeding out, and then the group they’d attacked ran away.

An hour later, a mercenary band wearing the colors of both the Palamas and Bardas families moved through the streets.

“What’s going on with them?” Mirian asked a well-dressed woman in Tenedor Plaza.

“You didn’t hear? The King has issued a denunciation of General Corrmier, and deputized them as the new guards of Palendurio. He told all the soldiers that they didn’t need to follow Corrmier’s orders anymore. Technically, it’s in his authority to dismiss a general, but the King isn’t actually supposed to exercise that power! None of them have since the war.”

That explained it.

Mirian then stopped by the Royal Courier for her message.

“Why, yes, I do have a letter for you,” the official there said. “Was a bit surprising. We haven’t heard anything from the north, and then here comes a zephyr falcon from Cairnmouth. If you don’t mind me asking… what’s going on up there? Everyone’s saying different things. Has Akana Praediar really declared war on us?”

“They have,” Mirian said, opening the letter from Lecne.

She read it quickly. Lecne hadn’t been able to find out any information about Sulvorath himself, but they had provoked the Deeps into moving agents into the area. Dozens of criminals and even innocent citizens in the area had been arrested and interrogated, all looking for Mirian. The descriptions they’d asked about matched her, and they matched the ‘Vera’ disguise she’d used briefly.

But not Micael, she thought. She was still ahead of him, and he was still obsessed. The why of it still wasn’t clear. There had to be more to why he’d want the apocalypse to continue. There had to be some reason he’d attacked her.

Specter was still giving him access to the Deeps. She had a plan for how to cut that off, but for now, it was better to let Sulvorath spend all his time and energy looking for her. She had a plan to cut into his efforts to do anything, and now she had a baseline to test against the variations she was going to make in each cycle.

“Any other news?” the courier asked.

“No,” Mirian said, and left.

As she entered her room, she checked the orichalcum shavings she’d grafted into the locking mechanism. Her own magnetic spell fizzled. So resonance does decay, she thought. The spell resistant metal she’d kept on herself still matched her own soul, but removed from it, it would eventually revert. That was good to know.

General Corrmier, it seemed, didn’t care much what King Aurelius Palamas proclaimed. That evening, Mirian watched from the roof of a clocktower as Baracueli soldiers fought roving street battles. The entire city sounded with gunfire and spells. The Bard and Lion Inn boarded up its windows and started using the tables and chairs to barricade the door at night.

When Mirian woke in the morning, it seemed Palendurio was divided: the Loyalist faction, as they were calling themselves, had claimed the city north of the Magrio River, while the Liberation faction—Mirian wasn’t sure where’d they’d gotten the name—had claimed the south part of the city. Every bridge was occupied, and the streets were deserted as people hid in their homes.

The next day, as she was writing her observations and notes about events, Mirian felt the rumble of a small earthquake. Quickly, she rushed out to her balcony, then levitated over one of the abandoned towers of Ducastil, no longer caring at all if she was seen.

She was just in time to watch as the leyline eruption began.